Weekend Immersion in Berlin  

“I don’t want people to be punished for the harm they cause me or others. I want people to be free from the suffering they experience and the suffering they cause others.” Lama Rod Owens

Spiritual abolitionism is more than a critique of power and how social systems work to grant and deny people resources that they need to survive. Spiritual abolitionism means that our entire ecology must be liberated. The Heart Sutra is one of the tools available to us in this work of liberation.

The Heart Sutra teaches that all phenomena are just expressions of the essence — this includes the sacred duality between form and emptiness. The Heart Sutra is nothing but a contradiction. Therefore, sacred duality is a contradiction because ultimately, there is no duality as there are no phenomena.
Dualities generate a tension that, through practice, we can ride back into the essence. The tension keeps us activated, which in turn keeps us from sinking into a lull or numbness from which it is difficult to break out. Using dualities like this expresses another theme of the Heart Sutra, which is the potential of liberation through contradictions. 

Join Lama Rod Owens as he helps us explore how we can embody and live out these contradictions in our daily lives, in service to our collective liberation for ourselves, others, and the unseen ecologies of ancestors and descendants. We have to do the labor to get ourselves free, and that is the same labor we offer to our collectives. The talks and guided practices within this offering ask how we might abolish anything that prevents us from being in direct, honest, and compassionate relationships first with ourselves and then the communities we belong to.

Course Details

In Berlin or on Zoom
The program starts on Friday evening 7 pm with the arrival. The begin of the talk is on 7.30pm. This is followed by a full and nourishing day of practices on Saturday (10–5pm) including a generous lunch onsite, ending on Sunday at 1pm after a deepening morning practice. After the closing of the official part there will be space to rest and integrate our experiences and newfound connections on Sunday afternoon, before leaving the shared space.

Talk on Friday: 7.30–9.30 pm (Arrival 7.00pm)

Immersion Saturday: 10–5 pm

Immersion Sunday: 10–1 pm 

Doors open: 6.30 pm on Friday
Doors open: 9.00 am on Saturday + Sunday

Integration time: Sunday 1–4 pm 
There's time for gentle integration and rest onsite, to allow for a soft landing and departure from the temporary community, the shared space and offerings. 

About Lama Rod Owens

Lama Rod Owens is a Black Buddhist Southern Queen. An international influencer with a Master of Divinity degree in Buddhist Studies from Harvard Divinity School with a focus on the intersection of social change, identity, and spiritual practice. Author of The New Saints: From Broken Hearts to Spiritual Warriors and Love and Rage: The Path of Liberation through Anger and co-author of Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love and Liberation, his teachings center on freedom, self-expression, and radical self-care. Highly sought after for talks, retreats, and workshops, his mission is showing you how to heal and free yourself.

A leading voice in a new generation of Buddhist teachers with over 11 years of experience, Lama Rod is highly respected among his peers and the communities that he serves. “It can be confusing for people to see Tantric Buddhist teachings coming from someone who’s Black and queer, southern, and fat, but I love it. It's who I am.” he says. From these intersections, he creates a platform that’s very natural, engaging, and inclusive.

Applauded for his mastery in balancing weighty topics with a sense of lightness while still speaking truth to power, this Queen has been featured by CNN, Good Morning America, BBC, The Washington Post, PBS, NPR, Ebony, and more.

Connection is Lama Rod’s second language; authenticity is his first. Meeting people where they are and speaking to them rather than at them with words they can relate to makes his delivery digestible and highly sought after.

Honoring his southern roots, he refers to his healing approach as “laying hands.” His laying of hands, however, is guidance. It's showing you how to do the work of making the necessary choices in your day-to-day relationships and routines to heal and free yourself from the traumas that bind you to self-sabotaging behaviors.

Lama Rod teaches you how to continuously choose clarity and light, how to transform challenging emotions such as grief and anger into liberation.

Organiser: Internal Practice

Internal Practice is a vessel founded and led by Amanda Haas Abd El Halim (she/they)—Zen Buddhist practitioner, yoga teacher, designer, and facilitator. Internal Practice contains of movement, breath and meditation practices deeply rooted in Yogic and Zen Buddhism. The well-being offerings are diverse: mostly slow powered and centred around decolonial and collective healing justices. Whether casual morning sitting meditations, talks, community workshops on how to rest better, all the offerings are generally made so they're covering costs and open to people of any class, education, race, gender and abilities. The mission of Internal Practice is to cater to anyone who's interested in the liberation of all beings. If you have any questions on collective or one-on-one practices, please reach out to info@internalpractice.com.

www.internalpractice.com  |  Instagram  |  E-Mail

Venue: Dharma Mati 

After Lama Rod Owens' first physical presence in Berlin in April 2024, we are now happy to gather this year at another venue: Dharma Mati, Berlin. Dharma Mati is part of the international Rigpa e.V.. We are happy to host Lama Rod there in a space that has gone through so much transformational work in the past and is kindly supporting this event.   

Lotus Lounge (onsite café)

On Saturday there will be a generous lunch buffet at Dharma Mati's own restaurant: the Lotus Lounge. The price of 18€ for a generous vegan/vegetarian open buffet and community lunch on Saturday is included in the booking ticket. Snacks, simple tea and filter coffee are made available during the course of course. Coffee from the machine and cake are not included, but can be purchased individually at the café. Please indicate your allergies and dietary restrictions on ticket checkout.

Registration 

It is recommended to book early, as this supports our planning efforts and secures our expenses prior to the event.This event is organised without any association or generous donors in the back.

@Dharma Mati, Berlin

Generous Supporter: € 200
Regular (Supporter): € 170 
Low Income (Supported): € 130   
No Income or savings (Partial Scholarship): € 98  
The prices all include 18€ for the open lunch buffet on Saturday

Friday talk only: €25

Zoom, Online

Full Immersion: € 80  
Friday talk only: € 12

Dana

If you add Dana (Donations) on the checkout form, this will be directly redirected to Lama Rod Owens additionally to the teachers' fee.

Pricing

We try to cater for everyone’s participation in this immersion, whilst being mindful of our fixed expenses. These include but aren't limited to: teachers' fee and dana, expenses for the travels and accommodation, rental of venue, lunch expenses and helpers fees. We wish for the abundance and depth of experience that we receive to be forwarded to Lama Rod Owens. We therefore created three main ticket tiers to choose from, plus a generous supporter and additional option for dana. We value your own self-inquiry of what you can pay. The lowest price comes at a cost for us, and the pay it forward-price will balance that out. We depend on your support and generosity as much as we do on our own. May these practices be spread wide and shared freely, yet may we allow for the teacher, the organisers and the venue to be nourished sustainably. If you can offer more than the available ticket prices, please use the donation option at the checkout to add to the ticket price. Space is limited, and if travelling or onsite participation is not, or no longer, possible, online participation is an option.

Scholarships 
We want this practice to be available to all, regardless of financial means. Please reach out to us, if you need additional support. We can offer a very limited amount of further reductions upon application. We also try to allow for one or two full scholarships, depending on the amount of supported tickets reaching us. To inquire, please reach out to us: info@internalpractice.com

Return policy
August 1 to 31 we can refund the ticket price, minus 15%. Starting September, the ticket price minus 25% can be returned. 

Spread the word

We need all of the help we can get to make this event well-known to folks potentially interested. We do not have any financial backing and need all of us to make this gathering happen. Please help share the news of this event widely. Share it with friends and colleagues, practicing Buddhism, other spiritual and/or activist practices and those that might potentially be interested in these teachings.

Accommodation, onsite

There is a limited amount of twin rooms available for the weekend. They need to be booked individually and are currently blocked for us. Please book the rooms at your earliest convenience by sending an email to gaestehaus@rigpa.de, stating that you are a participant of the retreat. All rooms cost 70€/night for single occupancy and 85€/night for double occupancy. Each room shares a bathroom with a second room, is equipped with a water boiler and there is a guest kitchen with stove and refrigerator that can be used by all guests.

There is a a restriction on wheelchair accessibility for the guest rooms: Only one double room in the basement is suitable for wheelchair users, as the elevator cannot be used in the event of a fire and therefore the escape route from the upper floors is not guaranteed if you cannot use the stairs.

Accessibility, Community communications etc.

See here for: Timetable, accessibility info, community communications

Accessibility needs can be indicated on checkout. Please indicate on checkout, if you are okay with your e-mail being shared with other for pre-event community communications—useful for shared accommodation, travel planing, and any other help the collective can give etc. There's a limited amount of onsite accommodation that can be booked individually through Rigpa Germany.

Photo credits onsite: ©Lama Rod Owens, Henry Walker-West, Amanda Haas Abd el Halim  


We can't wait for this immersion to happen soon!